Wireless communications have become increasingly prominent for sending and receiving information. For example, individuals may utilize a wireless communication device for voice communications, research, entertainment, or for conducting critical business transactions. To support these services, a wireless communication network may perform communications via forward-link communication channels and reverse-link communication channels. The forward-link communication channels typically carry communications from a wireless access network to wireless communication devices, while the reverse-link communication channels transfer communications from the wireless communication devices to the network. The forward-link channels may include pilot channels, sync channels, forward-traffic channels, and paging channels.
A paging channel is typically used by a network to transmit pages to a wireless communication device to provide a service notification to the device. For example, one type of paging message could comprise a “feature notification” page that is typically used to communicate caller-identification information to a user of a wireless communication device or to notify the user that a voice mail message is available. In other examples, pages could comprise “data burst” paging messages, which are typically used to transfer Short Message Service (SMS) messages to a wireless communication device. Other examples of pages could include “channel assignment” paging messages that are typically used to instruct a wireless communication device to tune to a new frequency and/or channel, and “general page” paging messages that may be used to inform a wireless communication device that a call is available for connection to the device. Other examples and types of pages are also possible.
As the popularity and use of wireless communication systems continues to rise, the chances that a wireless communication system will experience an overload condition also increases. An overload condition may occur for several reasons, including when a large number of users attempt to simultaneously utilize a wireless communication system in excess of capacity, or when a fault occurs that disables a portion of the communication system, for example. In particular, and by way of another example, a paging channel may experience an overload condition when large quantities of paging messages are transferred through the paging channel, resulting in a high degree of page utilization which may reduce the quality of service for users of the wireless communication system.